Whew. 39 hours is a long time on minimal sleep. 2896 QSOs x 322 countries =
2.795M points.
Once again, WriteLog performed beautifully. It's really helping my score. I
just can't get over how much fun it is using this program. I'm sure that the
pleasant screens helped me to stay awake. There's no way I would go back to
the DOS stone age, with mono fonts that bore the heck out of me.
The beta W5XD+ keyer with 10.14E performed well all weekend, and backspace
editing was great. Stereo audio switching of the two radios worked fine, too
(see below.) The new outboard speed pot was really neat. When Wayne first
introduced it, I didn't think it would be all that useful, but I found
myself using it frequently all weekend. I have the pot in a small portable
box right next to the keyboard, so it's very handy. The keyer also supports
the paddles, which is absolutely imperative with the 1000mp and 990 (Yaesu
designed an unfortunate conflict between the outboard and inboard keyers.)
ISSUES:
1. Two Radio Switching Algorithm. An Auto CQ on the first radio needs to be
restarted automatically, after sending the call or exchange on the second
radio. I've already sent details of this improvement to Wayne. This change
would contribute *significantly* to my score. I had to switch
back-and-forth at high speed manually all weekend, which made my fingers and
brain very sore. Of all the items on my wish list, this continues to be the
most important.
2. Stereo Toggle / Keyboard Remapping. The Split Audio command needs to be
implemented as a keyboard toggle. Right now, I use a keyboard remapping
program to make shift-tilde and tilde execute macros to pull down the menu
and turn split on and off, respectively. It would be nice to be able to just
hit a single toggle key. I also use the remapper to move the Insert and +
key right next to each other (dash becomes Insert and = becomes +). Built-in
keyboard remapping would be nice, although the priority is low (the
shareware I found is OK.)
3. Latch. I don't understand this command. Right now, it only stays in
effect for one CQ. You have to issue the command for each CQ, even if AUTO
CQ is in effect. That makes the command too cumbersome to use under actual
contesting conditions. This should be a toggle. When turned on, the audio
should latch on the second radio whenever a function key message is sent to
the first radio. A keyboard equivalent would be important here, too.
4. Super Check Partial Speed. Often the display speed was too slow to keep
up with my typing. With my particular brand of CW dyslexia, I often confuse
S and H, B and D, etc. I need to be able to quickly change a letter to see
which version of the call is in the master list. Quite few times, the SCP
display was blank long enough for me to conclude that the call wasn't in the
database, even though it really was there (i.e., the lookup or display was
too slow.) This would cause me to backspace and try a different letter, even
though the call was really in the database. Other logging programs do the
lookup instantly, and I'm running WL on a 600 MHz Pentium with 128Mb of
memory and a super fast disk drive. Why is this feature so slow? A fix here
would have been a big help to my score.
5. Super Check Partial Results. It seemed to me that SCP puts way too much
info on the screen. I think this is because it's trying to match all kinds
of possible combinations, and the most likely ones are not sorted to the
top. Quite often, the desired call was so far down the list that I would
have had to scroll the window horizontally to see it -- even after entring
the full call in the entry box (needless to say, this isn't practical at
100+ QSOs per hour.) My recollection is that the other logging programs do
this better, but I'll have to do a comparison check and report back on this
issue. Seems to me that there's an opportunity to improve the SCP algorithm
beyond what is now the state of the art for all contest log programs, but
I'll have to think about it. How about some ideas?
6. Rates. Has this been discussed before? I don't understand the algorithm
behind the rate display. The other logging programs tell you the QSO rate
for the last 10 minutes and the last 60 minutes. For WL, the short and long
time periods are variable! Sometimes the short rate is over a 3 minute
period or sometimes 5 minutes or sometimes 4 minutes. The long rate might be
over 63 minutes, 89 minutes or 76 minutes. I think I saw it go over 100
minutes once. Why does the time period vary? This makes it impossible to
compare one's performance from one period to another throughout the contest.
I'm slow at math, so maybe the algorithm is superior in WL, but someone
needs to explain it to me. Seems to me that it would be better to have a
little box for each of the time periods, so one could enter the desired
number of minutes for computing the rate per hour.
7. F1 bug. Every now and them, WL would display the Help screen instead of
sending CQ when I hit F1 (I have CT compatibility enabled.) Just hitting ESC
made the screen go away (without stopping the CQ, fortunately.) Looks like
there's a timing bug or key debounce problem here. It happened a lot more
during CQWW CW than ARRL DX CW.
8. Filling the Exchange. For some reason, WL was not filling in the exchange
on subsequent QSOs with the same station. Filling the exchange myself cost
me a lot of time. This is high priority.
9. Filling in Dupes. But it *did* fill the exchange on dupes -- with the
wrong power! It always put in 100W. Since I work dupes, I had to be really
careful to check the power against what was shown on the next line in red
(which was the correct power.) This is a bug.
Well, that's it. Hopefully some of these items can get fixed before CQ WPX
CW, which will be my next big effort (it never hurts to ask!)
All in all, WriteLog is a great program -- the best!
73, Dick WC1M
--
WWW: http://www.contesting.com/writelog
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Problems: owner-writelog@contesting.com
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